Out this week: The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder; Burning Down the House by Jane Mendelsohn; Stork Mountain by Miroslav Penkov; Shelter by Jung Yun; Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton; and The North Water by Ian McGuire. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2016 Book Preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Bachelder; Mendelsohn; Penkov; Yun; Dutton; McGuire
5,000 Twitterers!
Congrats to @Jschancellor for being the 5,000th follower of @The_Millions! #balloondrop (Everyone go congratulate @Jschancellor on Twitter!)
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Curiosities: Smoldering Eyebrows
E-book pricing wars continue. Sony tries to hit the Kindle where it hurts by offering cheaper e-books. Meanwhile, $0 is becoming an important price point at the Kindle store.Sam Anderson hates Thomas Pynchon.An indie bookstore fan uses our bookstore tour as a jumping-off point for a literary day in Manhattan. You can too.
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Glorification of the Human
“Everywhere in the language of this collection is the deliberate and sustained glorification of the human. Long after his 11 months in what he calls the Lager (Auschwitz III), as a survivor, Primo Levi understands evil as not only banal but unworthy of our insight – even of our intelligence, for it reveals nothing interesting or compelling about itself.” Toni Morrison on The Complete Works of Primo Levi in The Guardian.
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Thursday Links
A really great, thoughtful post about independent book stores in New York from The Written Nerd. A must read if you are a bookseller or if you care about the state of independent bookstores. Read the whole thing and then see my comment on the post for my thoughts.As an antidote to all the “best of” lists, check out the post at Book World about the twelve books she wishes she hadn’t read this year.Least likely to be the next Oprah Book Club Pick: Kitty Kelley is writing an unauthorized bio of Oprah Winfrey.An esoteric obsession: Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie
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Amazon Cloud Storage
Amazon now wants to be the home for all your music files. The online retail giant just announced a new storage initiative that lets you have 5GB of free online storage and the “Cloud Player” so you play all your stored music from the web.
But When Will They Play “Free Bird?”
Meanwhile, in NPR’s recording studio, classically trained violinist Aleksey Igudesman and pianist Hyung-ki Joo perform the most original rendition of “I Will Survive” you’re going to hear all year.
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